Big Sunspot Unleashes X-flare on July 6th‏

X-FLARE: For days, giant sunspot AR1515 has looked capable of producing a really strong explosion. On July 6th it finally did. Yesterday, the sunspot's magnetic canopy erupted, producing a brief but potent X1.1-class solar flare. The explosion hurled a CME into space and sparked a solar proton storm around Earth.